Marketing is essential for any business, but it can be the source of immense frustration.
You can be doing all the right things: posting thoughtfully to social media, publishing a newsletter that addresses pain points and providing solutions, running creative and clever ads, and yet, it’s not translating into the results your business needs.
When you see this, you might think, “We aren’t doing enough. We aren’t being creative enough.”
But the problem isn’t a lack of effort or creativity. It’s a misalignment within your marketing.
The solution isn’t working harder. It’s ensuring your marketing is built on a solid foundation. That starts with the role of marketing.
What is the Role of Marketing?
Marketing exists to help your business. To put it simply, it is a support function. It isn’t unlike essential roles that keep your business running, such as accounting or sales.
Simple. Right?
Not necessarily. I have seen some marketers suggest that marketing shouldn’t exist in a supporting role. Instead they feel it should have a lead role.
I have to admit, I find it puzzling and irresponsible. While marketing can be highly creative, it isn’t an art unto itself. Marketing shouldn’t exist simply because it can.
Marketing that decouples from the business ceases to provide value to it and is only going to drain your bank account
The Chain of Command
There are four things that make up the foundation of your marketing:
- Business Goals
- Marketing Goals
- Marketing Objectives
- Marketing Tactics
If they are out of alignment, your results will be negatively impacted. Let’s talk about each one in more detail.
Business Goals
At the top are the business goals. These are the things that you need to accomplish in order for your business to stay healthy and grow. Your business goals could be things like:
- Increase revenue by 15%
- Increase our market share by 10%
- Build a new factory
A quick caveat about your business goals. If you choose the wrong business goals, your marketing won’t help you because it will be pointed in the wrong direction. So, be clear on your business goals and make sure they are the right goals.
Marketing Goals
Your marketing goals should always be connected to your business goal because marketing supports your business. As with your marketing goals, there is a caveat. Marketing won’t necessarily always be able to support your business goals.
If you look at the business goals I gave as an example, marketing can only support two of those three goals: increasing your revenue and your market share.
When you’re creating marketing goals, you have to identify what business goals marketing can support. Obviously, marketing is going to be any help in building a factory.
If we use the example of increasing revenue by 15%, a marketing goal might be:
- Generate 500 qualified leads
Marketing Objectives
Next are the marketing objectives. Now, I might look at this a little differently than some marketers because of my time at corporations doing project work. I see objectives as milestones that show that your marketing is moving towards your marketing goals.
Another way to think of it is that they show you’re going in the right direction, and for that reason, they are firmly attached to your marketing goal. Your marketing objectives will be those things in your sales funnel that you know have to happen for you to get to 500 qualified leads.
For example, a marketing objective might be:
- Drive 3000 people to your sales page
Marketing Tactics
Finally, there are the marketing tactics. Theu are the actions you are taking to help you meet the marketing objectives. It’s the videos, social media posts, ads, emails, blog posts, etc.
They drive the awareness, interest, and open the door, inviting people to come in. But beware because they aren’t just stuff you do.
Tactics need to be strategic. There needs to be a reason why they exist, and you have to know what their job is. And you should be able to connect them up the line to your business goals.
When Marketing Misaligns
If you were to look at your marketing as business org chart, you would see different levels.
It should look like this:
As you can see, the business goals are on the top and the marketing tactics are on the bottom.
When you plan, you work from the top down. When you execute, you work from the bottom up.
Your tactics are the engine. They impact the levels above them. If everything is aligned, they will drive straight through your marketing objectives and goals straight to your business goals. If not, your marketing will misfire.
To be fair, misalignment may not always be the issue that your marketing isn’t working. You could be using the wrong tactics or using the tactics incorrectly.
More often than not, what I see is that misalignment is the primary issue or a major issue.
There are three places that usually result in the most misalignments.
The most common mistake is jumping straight to tactics. People do this because it’s action, and action gets results.
When you plan, it’s action as well, but it’s not public action. When you’re posting to social media, it feels more important because it’s something that people see and can react to.
The issue is that the action isn’t connected to anything. It’s a random thing that you’re doing, but you’re likely hoping it gets a specific result.
Jumping to tactics is like having cereal, but instead of pouring it in a bowl, you take it out a handful and throw it in the air. Yes, the cereal is out, but it’s not in a form that helps you consume it safely or easily. It’s action, but it’s random action that happens for no other reason than it can happen.
Another frequent break occurs when the marketing goals don’t connect with the business goals.
Remember earlier when I said that some people don’t see or treat marketing as a support function of the business? This is what happens when marketing is acting independently of the business.
The marketing itself, is killing it. The tactics are moving the needle, and marketing goals are being hit, and yet it’s doing nothing to help the business. It’s the equivalent of taking out your money and setting it on fire.
The third most dangerous misalignment is when there are no business goals at all. It might sound crazy, but I’ve walked into this situation before.
If there are no business goals, you should not be marketing. Like jumping directly into tactics, it’s random activity that is being done for the sake of activity and it’s only going to generate noise while draining your bank account.
Final Thoughts
Alignment is foundational to your marketing. I should be able to talk to anybody on your team about a single tactic, and they should be able to tell me its job and how it aligns back up the chain to your business goals.
If they can’t or if you can’t, it’s highly likely your marketing is out of alignment. This means you are losing time and money.
It doesn’t have to be that way. End the frustration. Check your marketing and make sure it’s aligned.
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